"The outbreak of COVID-19 and the subsequent prolonged lockdowns have been accompanied by an exponential rise in imports of electronic transmissions, mainly of luxury items like movies, music, video games and printed matter. While the profits and revenues of digital players are rising steadily, the ability of the governments to check these conspicuous imports and generate additional tariff revenues is being severely limited because of the moratorium on customs duties on electronic transmissions. This moratorium was agreed in 1998 with no consensus on the scope of the moratorium, no clarity on how electronic transmissions are classified or what they covered, and no notion of how the digital revolution will unfold. This paper proposes a basis for deciding the scope of the moratorium by using the trichotomy of ‘goods', ‘intangible goods' and ‘services.' Further, using different classifications of ET, the paper estimates the potential tariff revenue losses and the development impact of the moratorium."

Support: Digital